Why I Went Home

Okay, it's a much longer story than you or I really have time for, but something struck me while reading a review of Lucinda Rosenfeld's latest, Why She Went Home. (I would link to the Times review, but I think it's from more than a few weeks ago, and I've been carrying around this torn-out paragraph since:)

In the movies, the malaise-stricken can get by on little more than a colorful setting and an exquisite pair of cheekbones, but in literature, bones of a more substantial sort are usually needed. Whichever bank of the river Phoebe finds herself grounded on, it's hard to shake the feeling that she's still sorting through a case of disappointed entitlement--the woeful burden of being merely pretty, smart and privileged in a world in which maybe only the gorgeous, brilliant and wealthy don't have to work for what they want.

And that's why I'm not hard at work on my novel.